After meeting a nice man on the train Daisy swaps numbers but gets in a flap about textiquette and worse of all sextiquette - but is relieved to realise she'd not thought about Julius once.

Miles was lying on the sofa in his flat, his head in his hands. 'I can't remember vital information,' he moaned. 'I've got concussion and forgotten my lawyer's name.'

'Hardly traumatic. A blessing, surely?' I said. 'What happened, anyway? Did your giant ego trip you up and you fell on your head?'

'I had a boxing lesson. Info must have fallen sideways out my ears.' He managed to haul himself to sitting, the last tinge of colour draining from his face.

'Must be tough being so macho,' I teased.

He looked like a gutless adolescent, slumped in his work-out gear, not some suave forty-something ex banker. Why is it that as women mature, physically and emotionally, men regress?

'No, boxing is great. It strengthens every part of your body. Even your wrists get a work out.'

'What about your nostrils and ear lobes? Do they get toned too?' He threw me a look. 'Well, I've always been proud of my lobes. They're my most honed body part,' I smiled, tugging at them.

After I had made Miles sweet tea, I sat beside him.

'Actually, I forgot something traumatic, too.'

'Our first time?' he joked. 'A blessing, surely? You hated what I did to your ear lobes.'

'No, listen,' I said, excitedly, 'I met this fantastic guy, Michael, on a train and we ended up telling each other everything and when I got home I realised that I hadn't mentioned Julius once.'

'Now, that is a blessing,' he laughed.

'I know. I woke up this morning and something felt different. I hadn't banged on about our miscarried relationship or anything. I had actually forgotten him. That's the thing about letting go or falling in love, you can't try to do it. You only know it's happened after the incalculable point of it happening.'

'Whatever,' Miles shrugged. 'Are you going to see this bloke again?'

'Who knows? I'm in a flap about the textiquette, let alone the sextiquette of it all.'

I told Miles that we had exchanged details the modern way, tapping each others numbers into our mobile phones. Then he'd walked me to a taxi and waiting on the pavement, I felt nervous.

Shutdown and strange, because I liked him and because he was a grown up, intimacy seemed terrifying. As far out of reach as seducing your aggressively hostile bank manager after he'd berated you over your sizeable overdraught.

I stared blankly at the traffic, willing all the free taxis away and wondered what other women did at this juncture. Even a blind baboon would be more flirtatious than me, because she'd probably knock into him which would at least ensure bodily contact.

I was convinced that women who get men manipulate the conversation with the dexterity of an undertaker dealing with a dead body in the face of a grief stricken lover.

The body would be removed and the funeral payment would be in hand, seamlessly, just as those women seal the deal on the next date before breaking eye contact.

I, meanwhile, have all the suggestive banter of a blinking corpse.

And yet, even as I was berating myself for my lack of come hither, I was also wrestling with my Austin-esque belief that real men like to do the running. Another thing about me that was probably out of date, as my life at the coal face of forty something singledom was hardly calling cards and confident courting.

'Yeah, the first move is impossible without alcohol,' Miles said, sagely, as if pondering something earth shatteringly important.

'Because you're always calculating 'how long is this going to last? 4 hours, 24 hours, 6 days, 6 months? You're always thinking about what's going to happen, as opposed to letting it happen and if you're both stone cold sober, you've both got to really want it to happen or nothing does.'

I agreed, amused that Miles' upper limit was 6 months. He never thought 'will this last the night or the rest of my life?'

'But do men today want you to pursue them?' I asked.

'We want to make the moves but we want to know that we're not going to be rebuffed. You've got to seem interested but not easy. A challenge yet not too challenging.'

And men think women are tricky? I remembered something Relationship Richard had said. That if you have 'biology of purpose' with someone, it doesn't matter how many miscommunications you make, you will end up together. The question was did I have biology of purpose with Michael - or indeed any man?